I've been dithering on whether I liked Mitt Romney. On one hand, he espouses traditional Republican values. On the other, he's a raging socialist who never met a big government program he didn't like. It was his own ad, though, that convinced me that he's a jerk.

His most recent ad against Mike Huckabee (who I also don't really like) compares the number of pardons each issued as governor. Mike pardoned 1,033 convicts; Mitt pardoned none. Now, I don't have a lot of sympathy for criminals, but is Romney asking us to believe that not one single convict had a legitimate, worthy request? Apparently that's not the case. An Iraq war veteran asked for a pardon for shooting his friend with a BB gun when he was 13 years old. He needed the pardon so that he could get a job as a police officer, but Romney denied the request. That's not being tough on crime - that's being an ass.

"I view this report as a warning signal that they had the program, they halted the program," Bush said. "The reason why it's a warning signal is they could restart it." -- Pres. George W. Bush referring to Iran's nuclear program

I've spent a lot of the last 7 years defending the president and trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. As of today, I officially give up. That quote just smacks of desperation: "OK, we know that they're not doing this bad thing anymore, but, but... that means that they could do it again!"

Mr. President, most people would see Iran's actions as a victory. You told them to stop building nuclear facilities and they they did. You won. Stop trying to spin this as an excuse to keep poking that hornet nest with a stick.

The Republican primaries are settling into a bleak wasteland of unappealing candidates. In a mad rush to appeal to "values voters", they're abandoning their core constituency of fiscal conservatives who are more interested in sound economic policy than their neighbors' bedrooms.

• Mitt Romney: The governor so liberal that even Massachusetts likes him. He somehow combined the Orwellian nanny state of socialized health care with the worst possible corporate pandering in order to force people who live in that state to pay for health insurance whether they want it or not. And then bragged about it. I truly don't care that he's a Mormon. I care very much that he's a jackass.
• John McCain: The Little Engine That Could. Undoubtedly a good man who truly loves his country, but just can't resist the urge to limit free speech when it's convenient to him.